Active crypto VC firms fall to 150, lowest since November 2020

The crypto venture capital crowd has thinned out considerably. Only 150 unique VC firms participated in crypto funding rounds through July 28, according to CryptoRank data, marking the lowest monthly count since November 2020. At the May 2022 peak, 1,177 unique investors were piling into crypto deals. The current figure represents an 87% decline from that high-water mark. The numbers paint a sobering picture In the first quarter of 2026, approximately $4 billion was deployed across 355 deals, representing a roughly 50% drop quarter-over-quarter. The remaining active players skew heavily toward established names. Coinbase Ventures has historically led the pack with over 372 tracked deals, making it the most prolific investor in the space by sheer volume. NGC Ventures also remains among the consistently active firms. Why the exodus happened Regulatory tightening across major markets made crypto investing riskier from a compliance perspective. The enforcement-heavy posture adopted by regulators in the US and elsewhere created uncertainty that institutional-grade VCs simply didn’t want to navigate. Reduced trading volumes across both centralized and decentralized exchanges also played ...